TANZ!!

So how does spending a few hours on a numbers run trail like the ET Highway trail do anything to address "the past issues" with virtual/webcam caches? I am with Cankid on this one, though I prefer a number higher than 200. Most beginner cachers are NOT going to go out and do a Power Trail. Nor would a beginner that does a power trail be the likely candidate to just put out virtuals!

I guess I don't get it... second time in one week (and in the same thread). - Please explain how being a premium member and/or having more than 200 finds makes that person more responsible, knowledgeable, or quality oriented. According to www.cacherstats.com there are 246,348 cachers with 200 or more caches found. There are 63,500 cachers with 1,000 caches or more. I believe that that more caches a person finds, the more they care about geocaching, the more they are grounded in making sure it continues to last. Yes, you could live in a country that would have more caches... Or you could do a single power trail and instantly have enough. However, how many first time cachers care to do power trails? I know many of us that have 2,500 or more and would never consider doing one. I may dabble in GeoArt every once in awhile, I would NEVER do a power trail. With that said, a country that doesn't very many caches to begin with, probably doesn't need too many virtual either! And "again" Cerberus1, what is your solution to allow virtuals or webcams in a way that would work to add quality caches for both? I definitely liked some of the ideas that Cankid came up with.

Exactly why they should be brought back within reason. Virtuals should be allowed under 1 Virtual owned to 1,000 Finds. Webcams should just plain be allowed. Please explain what 1,000 finds would have to do with it. In my opinion, the main reasons Virtual Caches stopped was because people started making them of things not worth seeing. In order for them to work, they need to be of some place VERY special (ie the top of Mt Moran in the Grand Tetons, not "here is where I used to work"). To limit or curb people from Virtual-"izing" everything, do not give them an unlimited amount of virtuals. Allow them to post 1 Virtual Cache per 1,000 Geocache Finds. I have ~2,800 finds... so at this point I would have the ability to have 2 Virtuals. After I find 200 more, I would be allowed to have 3. How many people that live in South America do you think have 1000 finds? How about someone that lives in China? I didn't check every country in South America but the person that has the most finds in China would not be able to create a virtual cache according to your proposal. I doubt that there is anyone living in South America, or in well over half of the countries in the world would qualify for just 1 virtual. So just because people in one location do not have enough to qualify, we should say no to EVERYONE? How about a solution to your part of the world that would allow Virtuals back? There has to be a way to limit Virtuals to quality and quantity. 1:1000 was a suggested limit. It in no way guarantees quality, but it would at least be a start to allow them back!

Exactly why they should be brought back within reason. Virtuals should be allowed under 1 Virtual owned to 1,000 Finds. Webcams should just plain be allowed. Please explain what 1,000 finds would have to do with it. In my opinion, the main reasons Virtual Caches stopped was because people started making them of things not worth seeing. In order for them to work, they need to be of some place VERY special (ie the top of Mt Moran in the Grand Tetons, not "here is where I used to work"). To limit or curb people from Virtual-"izing" everything, do not give them an unlimited amount of virtuals. Allow them to post 1 Virtual Cache per 1,000 Geocache Finds. I have ~2,800 finds... so at this point I would have the ability to have 2 Virtuals. After I find 200 more, I would be allowed to have 3. It's not clear that restricting the number of virtuals someone can have is any guarantee of "wow". What you can be sure of is that people who might hide hundreds of caches in poorly considered locations are the ones who will be sure to hide the maximum number of virtuals they are allowed to hide. The people who may visit some cool locations where they either can't hide or can't maintain a physical cache will on the forum saying the 1 virtual per 1000 finds is unfair and is keeping them from hiding cool caches. Or people will find a friend who would otherwise not be hiding any virtuals to hide one for them. Similarly if you allow unresticted webcams you will have a lot more of the problems these caches use to have. Webcams disappear, Webcam sites are down, Webcam sites become too commercial, the webcam gets pointed a different direction so the coordinates have to be changed, the webcam has too wide a view so you can really tell if the cacher is in the picture, etc. It may be that whatever is left are webcams that are now fairly stable and reliable. But when webcams were allowed, they often were in state of needing maintenance. No cache guarantees any type of "Wow" factor. And the same issues you have with Webcams are typical of many caches that the Cache Owner doesnt put effort into. I have 12 of 14 Webcam Caches. One the page was down, the other the camera was down. Another, the link on the cache page wasnt correct, but I was able to find it by just googling the location + webcam. There is not "Great" answer... or ultimate answer. However, I do not believe the answer should be no virtuals or no webcams.

Exactly why they should be brought back within reason. Virtuals should be allowed under 1 Virtual owned to 1,000 Finds. Webcams should just plain be allowed. Please explain what 1,000 finds would have to do with it. In my opinion, the main reasons Virtual Caches stopped was because people started making them of things not worth seeing. In order for them to work, they need to be of some place VERY special (ie the top of Mt Moran in the Grand Tetons, not "here is where I used to work"). To limit or curb people from Virtual-"izing" everything, do not give them an unlimited amount of virtuals. Allow them to post 1 Virtual Cache per 1,000 Geocache Finds. I have ~2,800 finds... so at this point I would have the ability to have 2 Virtuals. After I find 200 more, I would be allowed to have 3.

The main reason that they have so many favorites is that they are rare, which makes them "special". Exactly why they should be brought back within reason. Virtuals should be allowed under 1 Virtual owned to 1,000 Finds. Webcams should just plain be allowed.

I dont want to use Waymarking... I dont want Munzees... I dont want Opencaching. I want Groundspeak to be reasonable about Virtuals and Webcam caches so that I have a single total for things that make sense for Geocaching. If Virtuals and Webcam caches didn't usually have the most favorites for a given area, I could COMPLETELY understand why they wouldn't want to have them. However, I travel to a lot of locations (now with 10 states with more than 100 caches each) and the caches that usually bubble up to the top of the favorite charts are caches that they should bring back!

I guess a lot of people think that if they went to the area and can prove it they get to claim the find. I suppose it's the same mentality as the people who visit a 5/5 cache that's 50 feet up a tree and claim a find on the basis they sighted it from the ground and then get shirty when they are told their "find" doesn't count. I suppose like so many other games, if people find it isn't fun any more they'll stop playing the game. I think the fun of geocaching is in the eye of the beholder. I am certain that the only thing that would drive me away from geocaching is local politics. I had a geocaching friend that quit because of politics at around 10K finds. It was ridiculous on both sides of the argument. Some cachers were placing powertrails EVERYWHERE. He didnt like powertrails. Started a feud and he ended up quiting and pulling his hides. Some of the best hides in that area. Powertrails do not do it for me. Someone claiming finds without doing them (and you know they are never going to even reach 1000 finds) can do whatever they desire. Its their life they have to live with and I bet they lie in just about everything they do. Does it hurt me? No. With that said, I am a firm believing in Virtuals (maybe 1 per 1000 finds) and Webcams. I like them. I have fun with them. I very much enjoy going to someplace new and looking at the favorited caches. Most of the time they are virtuals and I will go to those places just to see the amazing world we live in through someone elses eyes. Do I want a virtual of a street sign or something ridiculous? No... .but I do enjoy the ones that could be put into Yellowstone or other National Parks!

You're probably right. The latest integration into TwitFace and new ways of adding new technology that apparently achieves nothing except requiring people to have a fancy gadget are more important than the chance to open up swathes of currently unavailable (and beautiful) areas to geocaching. Personally I'd rather have extra virtuals in a place like the Great Smoky Mountains than a bunch of NFC tags and QR codes stuck on signs. Sadly it seems TPTB take the exact opposite view. Completely agree with your comments! If bringing back the dodo would allow virtuals in National Parks or allow me to find popular sites when I travel to new places... bring them back! If a webcam cache is the best way to capture my entire family when caching... LET ME DO IT! I am not into numbers... I am in it for getting me places that I would have NEVER gone had it not been for the cache there! I also would love to see the top 500 caches in the US (or world) and find out how many of them are Virtuals?

If the CO doesn't maintain it then log NA against it, just like if the CO doesn't maintain a traditional cache. This is not always simple with a webcam. The link might just be temporarily down, or the link may work and the camera is just off-line. Starting to post NM or NA logs against websites over which the cache owner has no control could easily get out of hand. When a NA or NM log is posted on a physical cache the reviewer usually asks the cache owner to fix the problem in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not sure what the cache owner can do if a problem is reported with a webcam other than argue that when camera has gone down before it always came back. So if the link is down for an extended period the cache gets disabled and maybe it gets archived. It's no different to the situation when a cache in a park is unavailable for an extended period because the park is closed for remodelling or similar. There are PLENTY of webcams up 24/7 in the world. More and more become stable everyday. If a webcam has issues, then it will be archived and the publisher for that region would know that that is not one that should be a webcam cache! Almost every single webcam cache I have come across (10 out of 11), they either worked like a charm or I was able to figure out the link via Google and grab a picture. So I really am not buying the argument presented above! If the Cache Owner "maintained" their webcam cache, they would validate that it is down and disable it. They would contact the owners of the webcam and find out if its going to be down permanently or for a period of time. They would POST that information and keep cachers informed. Heck, it would be FAR easier to maintain a webcam cache than some of the caches out there that go for months without repair!

I have noticed that the sending to my @vtext is faster than @gmail I tested this when I was only @gmail and a verizon cacher was getting alrets faster than me! I am guessing that SMS is much less busier than gmail!

Waymarking needs to be integrated into this site or it will never take off. I do not think that there needs to be a new type of cache for each new thing... However it can be included by creating a theme of caches and including it in the name or description.

I really enjoy virtual caches and webcam caches! They SHOULD be brought back, but back within reason. To me, reason would mean that a cacher could have 1 virtual per 1000 finds and/or 1 webcam per 500 finds. Some of my most favorite family picture caches have been taken with webcams because of this site. We would have never known to look for a webcam had it not been for the cache owner letting us know that it existed there. Some of my most favorite places to TAKE a picture have been virtual caches. They usually are something that means something to the cache owner and have a reason to be worthy. I order my caches in GSAK by Favorite Points and 23 out of my top 50 are Virtual Caches! That right there should tell Groundspeak that PEOPLE do like them. This is especially true in National Parks where location geocaching is not allowed. My thought... Drop Challenges (they are joke and no fun) and bring back Virtual and WebCam Caches. If someone is cheating, SO BE IT. I am not competing with them. My numbers are my numbers. Even if they Cache Potato them, they are still researching the location and finding things that they would not have found before.

I am quite certain that Google would work with Groundspeak in coming up with a more palatable price deal. Something that should of been done LONG before this issue came to fruition. Groundspeak should of came to the premium user and asked them what they thought about the issue. Put in in the Groundspeak Newsletter and LET us know about change before it happens. You see new changes to the website and you immediately think Upgrade, not something that is much worse than it was before.

Groundspeak... I have no idea how you thought this was an upgrade! This is TERRIBLE! First, I am disgusted with you removing virtuals and webcam caches... Those were a lot of fun in certain locations (where caches couldnt be put). Second, www.Waymarking.com is a joke. If it isnt part of this website and incorporated into the aps we have for our phones, what use is it? Finally, who in the world tested the new mapping system? Could ANYONE possibly be happy with these limited, slow, might load next century maps? Going to look for you reasoning, but now I have to pull a lat long and search for it in Google Earth so I have a picture. Unfortunately , I cannot do that from my phone. We are doing an activity that requires a GPS and mapping skills. Mapping skills requires MAPS! Hopefully you have a recovery?